It's complicated

[Spidermonkey]

Hi. We're experiencing some health issues with our grey squirrel. She isn't legal as she was born after the new EU rules came into force in 2016 so we were unable to apply for a licence for her. Therefore a vet appointment isn't possible and we're flailing around in the dark. I'm hoping that someone can help us get her back on track.
1. She was born late June 2017, orphaned whilst eyes still closed. A very early wet autumn meant that several babies were overwintered at a local rescue (also without a license).
2. Early December 2017 she was suddenly paralysed. MBD. She almost died, was kept in an incubator for weeks and given calcium. Slowly she stabilised.
3. Early February 2018 we adopted her as her rear legs were useless and it was clear she'd never be released. We researched and started dosing her with large doses of calcium, reducing gradually until none given, and changed her full spectrum lamp for one that produced UVB. We changed her diet and became familiar with the calcium/phosphate ratio. She doesn't get monkey nuts or peanuts, just 2 nuts (eg walnut, hazelnut, almond) per day. Veg, fruits, a dried rat block, and safe leaves, branches flowers etc. She gets mixed vitamins every day, but only around a quarter of that suggested for a rodent her size.
4. For around 18 months we did physio on her back legs, and she gained some movement in them, but not enough to raise her belly from the ground.
5. July 2018 we noticed she was dripping blood and her urine was pink stained, at the same time her back legs were spasoming. We assumed water infection as she was drinking lots, with strong smelling urine, treated her for 2 weeks with Baytril, dose for rat of the same size. Spasms and bleeding stopped after a couple of days. This happened again, about 6 months later, treated in the same way.
6. March 2019 she started to bite her foot. April 2019 she started biting her tail and taking the end off, we treated with metacam and taped up her tail. She would still manage to get her tail free some nights and take more off the end. We didn't know whether this was nerve pain and she was regaining feeling in her tail. Eventually, after 2 months she seemed to lose interest in her tail and we were able to free it, she stopped biting it and the fur grew back.
7. December 2019 she started drinking excessively, her urine was pungent and we noticed slight pinkish staining to it, she also lost her rotund belly and was quite slim. Again 2 weeks of Baytril and she seemed ok, belly back to rotund. In the last few days she's started drinking excessively again. Urine not smelly, no blood. We don't think she has kidney stones as she doesn't mind belly tickles. Too much calcium, not enough? Too much vit D, not enough? The symptoms seem to be the same for hyper and hypo. Shes not herself, shes quieter and playing less, she is still playing though at times and appetite seems ok. We just don't know what to do with her. Sorry this is so long but didn't want to miss out something that may be relevant.
Thanks

[RockyPops]

Thank you for taking care of your baby!

Poor thing! I hope someone can help!

Please check back here often, someone will have ideas.

Meanwhile if you could get a weight it may help.

Also pictures if you have any and does she have a name?

[Spidermonkey]

Her name is Spidermonkey. She was around 500g last time we weighed her, but that was a while ago, I'll get an up to date weight in the morning. I have 1000s of photos, do you mean a general pic or of something in particular? Not sure if I can see how to do that, but I'll try.

[CritterMom]

Given that the cipro seems to help, it does sound like it is urinary tract related.

Whenever I hear about squirrels with mobility issues like this also having urinary difficulties I have to wonder if, despite dribbling all the time, she isn't fully emptying her bladder when she pees. A lot of that is muscle related and if they aren't working properly due to partial paralysis she may be retaining urine. I know there are several videos on youtube showing how to express the bladder manually. Doing that several times a day in addition to her normal peeing might help keep these things from returning.

The drinking lots of water sounds like something that could be diabetes related. That can be tested with the little urine test strips for humans I believe - I know we have folks on here that have dealt with this that may be able to offer more help on that.

[Spidermonkey]

Thank you CritterMom. I'll have a look how to do that. I think we put the drinking down to the water infection and the water infections down to her dragging her undercarriage through her bedding, which obviously gets fouled. Do you mean Diastix, that tests for glucose? Or strips that test for ketones?

[RockyPops]

Her name is Spidermonkey. She was around 500g last time we weighed her, but that was a while ago, I'll get an up to date weight in the morning. I have 1000s of photos, do you mean a general pic or of something in particular? Not sure if I can see how to do that, but I'll try.

Spidermonkey is a beautiful young lady! Thank you!

As far as the pics. Just random pics, current is better, gives folks visual clues in diagnosing etc. And weight for dosing meds if needed.

And we all just love looking at squirrel pictures!

[HRT4SQRLS]

Thanks for helping SpiderMonkey. He is adorable. I know about the issues that you face in the UK with a grey squirrel.

These little paralyzed guys have so many issues. As CritterMom mentioned those with hind end mobility are prone to urinary tract infections. When the symptoms resolved in the past with a course of Baytril you can safely assume that she did have a bladder infection.

One thing that got my attention was the use of vitamins. You mentioned ...too much calcium? ... too much Vitamin D?? Your diet sounds good. I can see that you did your research regarding diet and the association with MBD. You treated the MBD but unfortunately the hind end paralysis is a permanent disability. Sometimes calcium will reverse the paralysis but not always. I’m not sure if you are still supplementing with calcium but it sounds like you are. I wouldn’t continue to give a lot of calcium and I wouldn’t give vitamins at all. I worry about supplementing with vitamins because of the toxicity of Vitamin D. Too much Vitamin D can be deadly in rodents. I see that you mentioned a UVB light. I think that is adequate along with a healthy diet. 15 minutes a day is adequate for the light. Too much Vitamin D will cause too much calcium to be absorbed. Excess calcium in the serum can cause kidney failure and calcification of other organs as well.

I’m not sure what the excess thirst is about. Excess drinking can be associated with diabetes but I would be surprised if that was the case in a young squirrel. In answer to your question about the Diastix test strip... yes, that would be a test strip you could use to test for glucose in the urine. It would be an easy way to test. I don’t know if you have access to urine test steps that test for other things. Some of the other helpful parameters on urine test strips are Leucocyte esterase for White blood cells and Nitrites for the presence of bacteria. Both of these are positive with urinary tract infection. Some also detect blood in the urine. I wanted to mention that acorns will cause the urine to turn red so we see a lot of alarmed squirrel moms reporting blood in the urine in the fall when it is actually from the acorns.

It would be good to test the urine for glucose to rule that out.
I would also discontinue supplementing with vitamins. I might have misunderstood and you are referring to the UVB light for Vitamin D. The light is fine. I would give natural calcium sources like antler or a cuttlebone. It’s OK to supplement with calcium but it should be minimal when given with a healthy diet.

Are you using a water bottle or a water bowl?

[Chickenlegs]

Patty is the queen of useful info as far as getting your girl healthy. It would be wonderful if she regained some mobility in her legs BUT if she is a lifetime para girl I have some experience with para squirrels— I have two. Scooter is pushing 5. Gracie is about a year old. Our paras have issues—circulation, urinary (as you already know) drag sores and sometimes phantom nerve pain (Gracie). Prayers for a long healthy life with a mom who does the very best for her girl. BUT if you have a question specifically about how I handle/treat/ care for my guys, I would be so happy to help. There’s a section under “special needs” all about para babies.

[Spidermonkey]

Thank you so much HRT4SQRLS.
I wasn't able to get the diastix locally but have some multi test strips on order, hopefully arriving tomorrow, but not sure how we'll get the urine on the strips yet! They test 10 parameters so hopefully we'll be able to get the info we need. We didn't know whether she needed any vitamins, we stopped them completely a month ago. She was only having a quarter of the recommended amount. No extra calcium or vit d, other than Zolcal D in her water once or twice a month, for a year or so. When she's had spasms in her hind legs and tail we've been unsure whether that meant too much or too little calcium/vit d, or something else entirely. The spasms have been at their worst when she's had what we've taken to be a water infection, but they do occur at other times and usually last for a day or two then stop. It's so difficult cos we don't want to make things worse, and there's clearly a problem now. Tonight the lower half of her body and legs were sodden 😕

It's my understanding that animals only produce vit d, from UVB, if they need to do, so do not overdose on it via this route, but maybe that's not the case with squirrels. In birds, cuttlebone is very poorly absorbed so not a useful method of getting calcium into them, again I do not know if this is the case with squirrels.

I do not feed acorns as I'm aware that they can contain mycotoxins, like monkey nuts, so that wouldn't be a factor.

We are using a water bottle.

Btw, I'm not sure what control she has over her bladder, but she doesn't continually dribble.

Thanks again, hopefully I'll have some more info tomorrow 😀

[Spidermonkey]

Thank you Chicken legs, yes I'm sure there's much you can teach us, we're (my daughter and i) pretty much self taught....lots of research, but difficult to find much on squirrels, and I haven't seen anything on disabled squirrels. I emailed a lady who runs a squirrel rescue right at the start and was told that with MBD they either regain the use of their legs or it kills them. I hadn't seen a section on disabled squirrels on here but will look for it now. Last year we raised some orphaned baby squirrels, which was lovely.

Do either of your babies have any movement or feeling in their back legs? Spider (also known as Miss Monkey &#129315 seems to have feeling some times more than others. She has frogs legs which she actually uses sometimes to get about on the floor and also sometimes uses to climb, other times they do nothing. Sometimes you squeeze her foot and she pulls it away, other times nothing, occasionally her back feet are out of her covers and I'll stroke her foot lightly and she'll respond. She must've been having pain when she was biting her tail, it was a horrendous time 😕

[HRT4SQRLS]

SpiderMom, I am SO impressed with your knowledge. In every post I can see your research.

I just wanted to make sure that you weren’t over supplementing. Overdoing the supplementing can cause issues as well. I can see you have it totally under control. The muscle twitches can be very complicated. Some muscle cramps and twitches are caused by magnesium deficiency OR it could be something completely different. There is no way to know. At the bottom of this post is some information I just copied. Based on the way I read that it sounds like excess calcium for the amount of magnesium might cause muscle twitches. Here is a little experiment you could try. For a week give Monkey only almonds as her nut treat. Don’t give walnuts or hazelnuts for a week. Almonds are higher in magnesium than the other nuts. On this board it was found (by accident) that almonds help to control seizures in squirrels prone to them. It’s the magnesium in the almonds. Years ago, a neuro squirrel was seizing uncontrollably. It was clear that the squirrel would pass from the seizures. Almonds were given as a comfort food as a gesture of love. Almost unbelievably the seizures stopped and the squirrel improved. She lived long after that event. Magnesium has know anti-seizure properties and apparently almonds had enough magnesium to reduce the seizures. I wonder if they would also reduce muscle twitches. It would be easy enough to try.

As I’m sure you know, nuts are unhealthy for squirrels. That’s why we limit them to treats so I’m not recommending giving extra nuts, just replacing her 2 walnuts/hazelnuts with almonds for a little while. It’s just a curiously and not based on anything concrete. I realize that paralysis is much more complex than this but it’s something easy.

Chickenlegs has a lot of experience with ‘scooter’ squirrels and knows all about their unique needs.



Magnesium also plays a role in regulating muscle contractions. Just like in the heart, magnesium acts as a natural calcium blocker to help muscles relax. ... If your body doesn't have enough magnesium to compete with calcium, your muscles may contract too much, causing cramps or spasms.

[Spidermonkey]

Ok so panic stations today. The test sticks arrived last night and we have attempted to get a sample - I say attempted, we didn't get much. I'm going to post the results which were alarming, but hoping to get a cleaner sample later.

First thing - urine looked cloudy, which we've never seen before
Luekocytes -ve
Nitrites -ve
Urobilinogen normal
Protein ++100(1.0)
Ph 5-6
Sg 1,025
Keytones -ve
Bilirubin -ve
Glucose +++1000(55)

I will repeat the test later, but if anyone can tell me how to get a clean sample I would be very grateful.

[MyBushyTail]

One of my pet squirrels developed type 2 diabetes at an older age. I tested his urine 3x a day (1x first urine of the day in the morning, 1x in the afternoon and 1x in the evening) with Keto-Diastix Reagent Strips, Ketone and Glucose. I used puppy pee pads to test his urine. It was so easy to dip the strip in his urine immediately after he urinated on the puppy pee pad and my results were always accurate (I have read that puppy pee pads are bad for squirrels but I used them for years on my squirrel without any issues). I also took my squirrel to my vet for a blood test every few months.

[Spidermonkey]

Thank you MyBushyTail, we managed to catch a clean sample tonight. The only test that looks problematic is the glucose test which was worse than this morning 😢
Glucose ++++2000 (111)
I have no idea what this means, other than the test doesn't read any higher so it must be really really bad. She's not an old squirrel, only 2 1/2 and we cannot see a vet under any circumstances 🙁. I have no idea what to do, or if there's anything we can do.

[Spidermonkey]

Thank you HRT4SQRLS. We were worried about her having an inbalance of anything which is why we gave her a small amount of vitamins. We're trying her on 2 almonds a day, but she can go weeks without spasms. I need to address the elevated glucose levels if possible.

[MyBushyTail]

If your squirrel has diabetes it is very easy to get the diabetes under control and very easy to maintain it - at least it was for my squirrel.

My squirrel developed type two diabetes at about 7 years of age, mainly due to becoming over weight. He had always been very sleek/thin up until about 6 1/2 years old - then the weight just piled on.

As soon as he was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes my vet put him on an oral medicine for diabetes called Glipizide, which helped tremendously. His diabetes got under control within several months and I no longer had to use the Glipizide medicine. He was as diabetes free as one could be considering diabetes never goes away. While on the Glipizide I also made sure that he got plenty of exercise and cut down his portions of foods just a tiny bit. Once I took him off of the Glipizide medicine all I had to do to keep his diabetes under control was to continue to make sure that he stayed under a certain weight, make sure that he got a lot of exercise and kept his portions of foods cut down. I never cut out any of his daily foods - never cut out any of his fruits, nuts or veggies - like I said just cut down on how much I gave him at each meal.

For the rest of his life I continued to test his urine with the Keto-Diastix Reagent Strips, Ketone and Glucose 3x a day and continued to get blood tests every few months.

Long story short for my squirrel weight loss was what pretty much what got his diabetes under control and kept it maintained.

Good Luck with your squirrel and if you have any question about diabetes in your squirrel I would be more than happy to help as much as I can.

[Spidermonkey]

MyBushyTail I am unable to get medication for Spidermonkey, so not sure how easy it's going to be for me. For now we're cutting out all fruit and grains and will restrict her rat blocks. It's hard for her to get a lot of exercise as she has little to no back leg use, and I cannot let her go outside, or in sight of the windows as she is illegal. She literally ballooned in the space of a week or less.